Meme

IGP alum Ethan Mollick ’97 created the “I Can Eat Glass” project during his time at Harvard. The project turned into one of the first famous Internet memes, and the original page was housed on the IGP website for several years before being taken down. Now, it is back where it belongs, and the current members of IGP have taken up the task of keeping the project going. Updates to come, but for now enjoy Ethan’s original work.

The Idea

The concept of the “I Can Eat Glass” Project is simple– to compile a list of ways to say the phrase “I can eat glass, it doesn’t hurt me” in various languages. Pretty easy, eh?

The Philosophy

This Project is, of course, completely trivial. Still, I feel a need to justify it, so pick your favorite reason, or give me your suggestions by email or comment form:

* The Project is based on the idea that people in a foreign country have an irresistable urge to try to say something in the indigenous tongue. In most cases, however, the best a person can do is “Where is the bathroom?” a phrase that marks them as a tourist. But, if one says “I can eat glass, it doesn’t hurt me,” you will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect.
* The Project is a challenge to the human spirit, in much the same way as the Apollo Program or the Panama Canal was, except that it involves much less digging and slightly less spaceflight.
* The Project is part of an attempt to procrastinate when I should be doing reading.
* The Project is a product of the social framework in which it was created, and thus by studying the Project, you are truly studying Western Civilization.
* The Project is the result of high technology in the hands of people who have no idea what to do with it.

The Project

The Project lists the language, the location in which it is spoken, how it would be written in the language (if the tongue uses the Roman alphabet), and a transliteration if available. Transliterations are in italics.

Main Entries

Afrikaans

Spoken in: South Africa, Namibia
In Afrikaans: “Ek kan glas eet, dit maak my nie seer nie.”
Alternately: “Ek kan glas eet, dit kan my nie seermaak nie.”
Pronounciation: The g’s are like the gutteral Dutch sound but “eet” is a long “ee”, not the “ay” of Dutch. “My” is “may”.
Note: This language is one of the most recent major languages, derived from Dutch in this century.

Arabic

Spoken in: North Africa and the Middle East
In Transliterated Algerian Arabic: Nakdar nakoul ezjaj ou ma youjaach.
In Egyptian Arabic: Ana momken aakol el-ezaz, we dah ma beyewgaaneash
Notes: Egyptian Arabic is the most popular Arabic dialect, this is due tothe huge backing of T.V. and radio all-over the Arab world. It is also spoken by 50 million people as a mother tongue which puts it on the top of the list of all arabic dialects. Unfortunately anything that has to be written will be translated to classical form first that’s why this and other Arabic dialects tend to be only spoken.

Aracnol

Spoken in: Online Portuguese community
In Aracnol: “poh sukumer vidro. nam-u mieh dzagradahvel.”
Pronounced: “paw soo koomair vee-drew. nown mee Eh dzu grudah vell.”
Note: Aracnol is an artificial language, developed when Portuguese-speakers were unable to use accents in email messages. It has since developed its own grammers and expressions. Compare with Portuguese below.

Note: The above is represented by bytes of eight bits each (how the string “I can eat glass, it doesn’t hurt me” would actually be stored in memory). Each byte is one character. Conveniently enough, bytes are organized into words of four bytes each. Curiously, the phrase is exactly nine words long in computer memory.
In ASCII (decimal notation): 73-32-99-97-110-32-101-97-116-32-103-108-97-115-115-44-32-105-116-32 -100-111-101-115-110-39-116- 32-104-117-114-116-32-109-101-0
In ASCII (hexadecimal notation): 49-20-63-61-6e-20-65-61-74-20-67-6c-61- 73-73-2c-20-69-74-20-64-6f-65-73-6e-27-74-20-68-75-72-74- 20-6d-65-00

Spoken in: Indonesia
In Bahasa Indonesia: Saya bisa makan gelas tanpa sakit
Pronounced: Suy-uh bee-sa makan gelas tun-puh sa-keet, with the accent on the first syllable of each word.
Literally: “I can eat glass without it hurting me.”
Note: Bahasa Indonesia is the national language of Indonesia. It is derived from many of the dialects used in the country (there are hundreds of them) and also partially evolved from Dutch, Portuguese, and Indian languages.

Spoken in: Cape Verde, emigrants in Lisbon and Boston.
In Creole: “M’tá podê kumê vidru, ká stá máguame.”
Pronounciation: The first “m” means “I” and is just a sweet nasalation: you close your mouth and use your nose. It’s something like a small “mmmh”.
Note: This language is a mixture of Portugese and African languages from Senegal and Guinea-Bissau.

Spoken in: China
In Mandarin:
Transliteration (using the Pinyin system): “Wo ke yi chi bo li, wo bu huei sho shang”
Notes: There are different systems for converting Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Haka, etc.) speech to roman text, one of them is Pinyin. As an example ‘I’ or ‘me’ in Mandarin is written ‘wo’ in pinyin. Every sound like ‘wo’ can be pronounced in 4 ‘tunes’, or changes in tone. In this case ‘wo’ is in the third tone. To pronounce it, first the pitch of your voice goes down a little, then rises. In pinyin this is pictured by placing a ‘v’ on top of the o (like ô but just the other way around). Unfortunately, this is currently not supported by HTML characters.

Czech

Spoken in: Czech Republic
In Czech: “Muzu jíst sklo; to mi neskodí.”
Pronounced: MOO-zhoo yeest skloh; toh mee NEH-shkoh-dee.
Alternately: “Muzu jíst sklo, to mi nic neudelá.”
Pronounced: MOO-zhoo yeest skloh, toh mee nyeets NEH-oo-dye-lah.
Notes: In “muzu,” there is a little circle over the u (like the å in Swedish or Norwegian). Also, there is an inverted circumflex over the z (an upside-down ^). There is an inverted circumflex over the s in “neskodí”m and in the alternate version, over the second e in “neudelá”. The first version is generally used to describe realistic action.

Spoken in: The Oz books by L. Frank Baum and his successors. Spoken by fairies and humans in Burzee, the Nome Kingdom, and Antozia. From the language family Fairy, which is not descended from Nostratic.
In Dan-Rur: “Nel akkeai-ugoil ureil; ai moirshoai nel.”
Literally: “Person-of-low-station to eat-is-able-in-absolute-present glass; this hurts-in-fiction person-of-low-station.
Pronounciation: Highly variable according to location and species.

Spoken in: Estonia
In Estonian: Ma võin klaasi süüa, see ei tee mulle midagi
Pronounced: Mah vUH-in klAAH-see sYEWah, say eye TAY mOOlleh mEEtakee
Notes: Estonian, a close relative of Finnish, is spoken by the approximately one million native inhabitants of the small Baltic state of Estonia, which has a large Russian-speaking community (approx. 500,000) left over from the half century during which the country was colonized by the Soviet Union. Estonia’s independence was restored in 1991.

Spoken: Ireland
In Irish: “Tá mé in ann gloine a ithe; Ní chuireann sé isteach nó amach orm.”
Pronounced: taw MAY in ON glinna ah IH-heh; nee kurrun SHAY IS-chyok no em-OCK UR-em
Note: This is a more natural saying which translates as “I can eat glass; It doesn’t put me in or out”
The grammatically correct form would be: “Tá mé in ann gloine a ithe; Ní gortaíonn sé mé ar bith”
Literally: I can eat glass; It does not wound me at all.

Spoken in: Sarawak, Malaysia
In Kelabit: “Uih kereb kuman gelas, na’am inih belu’an na’an.”
Literally: “I can eat glass, not it hurt later.”
Notes: Kelabit is a language from the interior of Borneo. They had no word for glass before the British arrived during WWII. Go here for some more information. Given the nature of the subject matter (eating glass) the translator assumed that most native Kelabit speakers would say that it would make them “sick” (as opposed to hurt or injured) or rather “not make mesick” (na’am inih naru’ ma’it). The word glass in this context would probably be confused with a drinking glass. The only other word that they have for glass is the one meaning windowpane, which they have borrowed from Malaysian (Kelingai).

Spoken in: Latvia
In Latvian:
Pronounced: Ass varu eest styklu, tus mun nakaitee.
Notes: “e” and “E” is pronounced as in word “beg”, e in “nekaite” is the same sound two times longer. The “U” is as in word “push” and the “A” as U in word “but”.

Spoken in: This is an invented language, generated from Loglan, which was described in Scientific American in the 1960s. by the Logical Language Group
In Lojban: “mi ka’e citka loi blaci .i la’edi’u na xrani mi”
Pronounced: mee KAhey SHITkah loi BLAshi (pause) ee laheDIhoo na KHRAni mee.
Pronounciation: the apostrophe is an unvoiced stop, usually rendered much like the English “h”, the “x” is like German “ch”, and the “c” is like English “sh”. Vowels are like the European long vowels. The period represents a pause.

Spoken in: Cameroon and Nigeria
In Mambila:
Transliteration: “ml foti yeh ba darega, ` ml ki nggweh”
Note: The contributer cannot vouch for the grammar of the first phrase – there’s an ambiguity in the tense. He has used “ba”, which is present continuous, but would need to check it with a native speaker.

Spoken in: The Melanesian Pacific Isles
In Neo-Melanesian: “Mipela inap kaikai gilas na em i no inap killim mi liklik”
Literally: “I am enough to eat glass and it is not enough to hurt me a little bit”
Note: The degree of hurt expressed can be modified in this way:
Killim Liklik = Hurt a bit
Killim = Hurt
Killim Pinis (Kill ‘im finish) = Hurt a lot
Killim I dai = Kill him dead
Second Note: This is the ‘Pidgin’ languages of the Melanesian Pacific Isles. A mixture of German, English, Dutch and various indigenous languages hung on a melanesian grammar frame.

Spoken in: L. Frank Baum’s Oz by humans before the Era of the Wizard. From the language family of Imaginary-Nonestic, which Professor Dharnenblaug of the Royal Athletic College of Oz believes is descended from Nostratic.
In Old Ozzish: “Iklan-ketel zaglu uni; nal-kepa ni.”
Literally: “To-be-able-to-eat glass I; not-hurt me.”
Pronounced: As written, not as English speakers would pronounce it. Accent is on the penultimate syllable.

Pascal

Spoken in: Computer Science classrooms
In Pascal:
“Var Eating_Glass: Boolean;
Pain: Boolean;
Begin
Eating_Glass := True;
If (Eating_Glass) then Pain := False;
End.”
Translation: I can eat glass. If I can eat glass, then it does not hurt.

Persian (Farsi)

Spoken in: the Middle East
Transliteration:Man meetoonam sheesheh bowkhoram; dard nehmeekohneh.”
Note:”a” has short a sound, “ah” long a as in “father” “eh” short e as in “pez”, “ee” long e as in “Greek”, “oh” long o as in “show”, oo as in food.
Literally: I can eat glass; it does not hurt.

Spoken in: St. Lucia
In Patwa: “Mwen sa manjé glas, i pa ka fé mwen mal.”
Note from Paul Garrett, anthropologist: St. Lucia is an island of 238 sqaure miles, a neighbor of Martinique (to the north), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (to the south), and Barbados (to the east). English is the official language now, but St. Lucia was colonized by the French from the late seventeenth century until the English won it away from the French in 1814–and even after that, the French colonial influence remained stronger than the English for several decades. (It’s now, as of 1979, an independent state within the Commonwealth.) A French-lexicon creole is still widely spoken–some old rural people are still monolingual in the language. It’s generally referred to as “Patwa” by its speakers, and that’s what I generally call it too. But there’s a movement afoot to get people to start calling it “Kweyol” (acute accent on the E, grave accent on the O) as a matter of national pride, since some think that “Patwa” is derogatory, a relic of the colonial past. You can call it by either/both of those labels, or you can call it “St. Lucian French-lexified creole”, which is more technical but more descriptive.

Spoken in: the works of J.R.R. Tolkien
In Sindarin: “Bathathon heled, im ú-cirath.”
Pronounced: BA-tha-thon HEH-led, eem oo-KEER-ath
Literally: “I will consume glass, it will not hurt me.”
Note: The Languages of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth by Ruth S. Noel suggests that the future tense can be used to imply ability. “Bath-” is a back-formed verb stem meaning “to consume,” derived from Quenya (a related Elvish language) vasa according to patterns established by other words.

Singlish (Corrrupted Singaporean English)

Spoken in: Singapore
In Singlish: “Can eat glass, lah, never hurt me, hoh!”
Pronounced: /ken EE’ gras lah, NEH-ver hu’ me, HOH/
Pronounciation note: Vowels clipped and nasalised. The /’/ represents a glottal stop. The “hoh” is pronounced entirely through the nose.
Alternatively: “Eat glass also can! I never kanah, wan!”
Pronounced: /Ea’ glas aw-so can! I NEH-vuh’ ka-NA, WAAHN!/
Pronounciation note: Same as before. “Kanah” is a word of dubious spelling, origin and meaning, generally implying punishment, pain, and other such unpleasantness, and enjoys widespread use in army barracks.
Malay-based alternative: “Makan glass, BOLEH! I don’t sakit, lor!”
Pronounced: /ma-kan glas BOH-lay! I don’ sah-ki’, laaw/
Literally: “Eat glass can! I don’t hurt”
Note: The words “lor”, “lah”, “wan” etc. are universal interjections and are usually interchangeable. Mix and match the versions at will!
Note on Singlish: Not quite a dialect; it is a controversial symptom of the infiltration of Malay, Tamil and various Chinese dialects into the old colonial language, English. The grammar of this alleged “language” is highly malleable (and has been condemned by the Authorities).

Spoken in: Southern Jutland in Denmark
In Soenderjysk: “Æ ka æe glass uhen at det gø mæ naue.”
Pronounced: Eh ca ehe glaass W-hen at de geh mae now.
Notes: Soendejysk is a dialect spoken in the southern part of Jutland in Denmark. It is a influenced by the German language. This is because this part of the country often has been occupied by the Germans during a variety of wars.

Spanish

Spoken in: Latin America, Spain, the US
In Spanish: “Puedo comer vidrio, no me duele.”
Literal Translation: I can eat glass, it is not painful to me.
Alternately: “Puedo comer vidrio, no me hace daño.”
Pronounced: Poo-EH-doh coh-MER VEE-dreeo, noh meh AH-se DAH-nio.
Literal translation: I can eat glass, it does not do me damage.
Note: The second translation is probably more accurate.

Swahili

Spoken in: Eastern Africa (Kenya and Tanzania)
In Swahili: “Ninaweza kula glasi, haiwezi kuumiza mimi.”
Literally: “I am able to eat glass, it is not able to hurt me.”

Spoken in: Tamil Nadu (southeastern state in India) as well as significant populations in Sri Lanka and Singapore.
Transliteration: Kanadi sapatulum, orukedum varathu.

Thai

Spoken in: Thailand
Transliteration: Taa pom (chan) gin grajok, mai jeb bpuad.
Notes: Pom is the first person singular pronoun which would be most appropriate for male foreigners to use, chan is for females. There are other words which might be used by a native, depending on the person speaking and the person listening, but most variations away from pom/chan would be considered offensive.

Turkish

Spoken in: Turkey
In Turkish: “Cam yiyebilirim, bana birsey yapmaz.”
Literal translation: I can eat glass, it does not do anything to me.
Note: To look at a playful version of Turkish, see “Turkish Bird Language.”

Twi

Spoken in: Central Ghana
In Twi: “Metumi awe tumpan. 3ny3 me hwee.”
(Yes, those are 3′s — they represent a backwards “E” which is used in Twi.)
Pronunciation: The 3′s are pronounced like short e’s and the “hw” sounds like “sh”.

Vietnamese

Spoken in: Vietnam
In Vietnamese: “Tôi có thê’ an thúy tinh, không hai gì.”
Note: In addition to those marks, there is what looks like a small “u” over the a in “an”, and a dot under the a in “hai”.
Literal translation: “I can eat glass, not harmful” (implies ‘to me’).

Spoken in: areas in which Central and Eastern European Jews have settled.
In Yiddish:
Transliterated: “Ikh ken esn gloz un es tut mir nisht vey.”
Note: Compare this language with German and Hebrew, elements of which are incorporated into Yiddish.

Oddities

In this section resides the assorted suggestions that did not really fit anywhere within the traditional ICEGP framework. This section is also different from other parts of the Project because I WILL list contributers’ names directly with their submssions (unless they do not want it), since all of these contributions are so… um… unique.

In Gibberish: “I conganong eatong gonglongasongsong, bongutong itong dongoesongnong’tong hongurongtomg monge.”
Pronounced: ai cohng-ah-nohng i-ah-tohng gohng-lohng-ah-sohng-sohng bohng-oo-tog ih-tohng dohng-i-oh-sohng-nohng-tohng hohng-oo-rohng-tohng mohng-i
Notes: the way to speak and write “Gibberish” is to simply take a word, any word, and after each consonant in the word put “ong”. leave the vowels the same. For example: speak (in english) is songpongeakong (in gibberish).Submitted by Heidi Skipper

Jive

Spoken in: the cribs of all da baddest cats
In Jive: Damn, bro, I is eatin’ dat sharp ass glass all da time, and man, believe it,’cause it ain’t be hurtin’ me yet!

Kidspeak

Spoken by: Mothers trying to talk to 1 to 3 year-olds
In Kidspeak: Momma eat num num pitty glass mmm see? no bo-bo!
Note: This, of course, would never actually be said to a child.Submitted by Connie Henderson

Lunfardo

Spoken in: This is a slang of Buenos Aires, Argentina, spoken by “Tangueros,” those who live the philosophy of Tango music, spoken most in the early 20th century.
In Lunfardo: Yo puedo manyar driovi, no me hace un carajo, no me hace.
Notes: Yo puedo=”I can”; manyar=”eat” (slang), driovi is from “vidrio” which means glass, so driovi is like saying “ssgla”; no me hace=”it doesn’t”; un carajo=a rude word for nothing… also an insult (not THAT rude); no me hace=people use to repeat some part of the paragraph.Submitted by SebaS

Spoken in: Newfoundland, which appears to be part of Canada
In Newfie: “Shair I kin it glass, b’ye, it dohn do me no ‘arm.”
Note: I have had more submissions for Newfie than anything else. It appears that Canadians are obsessed with making fun of Newfoundland. Thus, to pacify Our Neighbors To The North, I am including one version of Newfie. One question– who do people from Newfoundland make fun of? This question has now been answered Newfies apparently make fun of people from Toronto and tell bad lightbulb jokes about them.Submitted by about 10 Canadians, this version by Kerilyn Cole

Newspeak

Spoken in: Oceania (from George Orwell’s _1984_)
In Newspeak: I can eat glass. It does not hurt me.
Pronounced: Like “I can eat glass. It does not hurt me.”
Notes: Newspeak was constructed to restrict thought to _goodthink_ (thought in line with the interests of the state) and to allow for easy expression of _goodthinkful_ ideas. The phrase comes through largely unscathed because it expresses a simple mechanical relationship, the only real change being in the punctuation. However, if made as an actual statement in real life, this would probably be tied in with the philosophical viewpoint of the speaker, hence something such as “_Glass does not hurt goodthinkful eaters_” or “_Unownlifers eat glass unhurtfully_,” which would require some _doublethink_ to rationalize. Some might even say “I am a doubleplusgood unhurtful eater of glass.”Submitted by Barry Adelman

Opposite Day

Spoken in: elementary school
In Opposite Day: “I can’t eat glass and it does hurt me. It’s Opposite Day.”
Notes: This lesser known language is used by juveniles to fool their peers into thinking the opposite of what they should be thinking. A close relative to this language is the “Backward’s Day” language.Submitted by Marisa Morgan and Jenn Madan

Psycho Babble

In Psycho Babble: “How does Your Mother feel about Eating glass? Are you doing it to hurt her?”Submitted by Phillip

Spoken: Among turkish children or their parents
In Bird Language: begen cagam yigiyegebigiligirigim, baganaga agac}g} vegermegez.
Pronounced: pronounced as it is written. “c” is pronounced like the “g” in “generate”; “g” is pronounced as the “g” in “glass” (ironic!).
notes: children whose parents do not know this language and parents whose children do not know this language speak so with the aim of not being understood by the others.Submitted by Vzlem Peker

Vallyese

Spoken in: This is a regional dialect spoken on the West Coast of the USA
In Valleyese: “Like, you know, I can, like, totally, eat like, glass, and it will, like, totally not hurt me.”
Notes: This language is spoken mainly by Valley girls, and Surfers. It can be found in other spots around the world too.Submitted by “Jen”

Wunne Pekke

Spoken: dal.net #watertower channel, alt.tv.animaniacs
In Wunne Pekke: Hiyye canne hette lasse, hitte duzze notte hurre miyye.
Pronounced: Hi can het lass, hit duz not hurr me.
Note: Wunne Pekke is language invented by a member of alt.tv.animaniacs, and is written and spoken in that newsgroup and on the dal.net channel #watertower. It consists of spelling all words consonant-vowel- consonant-consonant-vowel, like the names of Yakko and Wakko Warner from the cartoon show Animaniacs. All words are translated into that letter pattern, with silent letters added and two-letter sounds turned into one letter.submitted by Aaron Varhola

Yodaspeak

Spoken by: Yoda of Dagobah
In Yodaspeak: “Hurt me it will not when glass I eat”
submitted by Leanne

The ICEGP has received some…. well, honors is not the right word, perhaps recognition:

* It was featured among the Useless Pages on the World Wide Web
* It has been listed as providing “great armchair Whorfian speculation material” by the Humanist Discussion Group, which I think is a good thing.
* There was a short, on-line article on the Project in “Fresh Stuff,” a neat e-zine.
* It has also been reviewed by the Learning Lab section of the June issue of Netguide magazine which gave it a coveted single star, which apparently means that it preferable to shoot oneself instead of seeing this page. Obviously, Netguide is a magazine of little class and should be avoided.
* It is a teaching tool at the University of Texas-Austin!
* Thanks for making this the #9 site on the Harvard Web. ICEGP accounts for almost half a percent of all traffic on the www.fas.harvard.edu site. (Note: this is probably no longer true, but we aim to change that!)
* The project has also been featured in “Yahoo” magazine! Cool, no?